At age 32 when he died, Alexander the Great had conquered and created the largest land-based empire the world has ever seen. It stretched from the Balkans to Pakistan. In 323 BC, Alexander fell ill and, after 12 days of excruciating pain, he seemingly passed away. However, his corpse didn’t show any signs of rot or decomposition for a whole six days. Modern-day scientists believe Alexander suffered from the neurological disorder Guillain-Barré Syndrome. They believe that when he “died” he was actually just paralyzed and mentally aware. Basically, he was horrifically buried alive!
If you missed seeing Manhattanhenge last night, you get one more chance this evening.
July 12, 1912 -
The first foreign-made film to premiere in America, Queen Elizabeth (Les Amours de la Reine Élisabeth), starring Sarah Bernhardt premiered on this date in NYC.
Rumors that Bernhardt performed in the film uniped are untrue. Bernhardt did lose her leg to gangrene in 1915.
July 12, 1962 -
The Rolling Stones, (or more precisely, the group that they became) gave their first concert on this date. The concert was held in London at the Marquee Club.
July 12, 1984 -
Madonna's Like a Virgin video premiered on MTV on this date and became an instant hit.
The songwriting team of Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg wrote this. Other songs they have written include Eternal Flame by the Bangles, So Emotional by Whitney Houston, True Colors by Cyndi Lauper, and Alone by Heart. All were #1 hits in the US featuring female vocalists. Steinberg considers this their most famous song.
July 12, 1986 -
The band, Simply Red's hit Holding Back the Years topped the charts on this date.
Simply Red's singer Mick Hucknall ("Red" was his nickname because of his red hair) originally recorded this in 1979 with his band The Frantic Elevators. Hucknall wrote this in his bedroom at his father's house while he was still a teenager.
July 12, 1991 -
John Singleton directorial debut, Boyz N the Hood, starring Ice Cube, Cuba Gooding Jr., Morris Chestnut, Larry Fishburne, Nia Long, Regina King, and Angela Bassett, went into general release on this date. (John Singleton's Oscar nomination for Best Director at the age of 24 made him the youngest director to ever receive such an accolade, beating Orson Welles by a good two years.)
Part of Writer and Director John Singleton's inspiration to making this movie came when an executive from Orion Pictures came to talk to his class at USC's film school. Singleton told the executives that he didn't like that the movie Colors wasn't about South Central Los Angeles at all, but was about "two white cops". When the executive defensively said that Ice-T wrote the music for the movie, Singleton said to a lot of applause "Well, Ice-T didn't write the fucking script!" Singleton also cited New Jack City as a movie that he didn't like, and wanted to make this movie as different from it as possible.
Secret files released about the good doctor
Today in History:
July 12, 100 BCE -
Julius Caesar was born on this date. He is famous for fighting the Garlic Wars and dying of the unkindest cut. His death so shocked the people of Rome that they buried him instead of praising him, although this may have been because he was a Proud Man.
Interesting to note that in between, fighting across most of Europe, Caesar was quoted as saying, It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.
July 12, 1908 -
Milton Berle was an Emmy-winning American comedian who was born Milton Berlinger, on this date. As the manic host of NBC's Texaco Star Theater (1948-1955), he was the first major star of television. He became known as Uncle Miltie to millions during TV's Golden Age.
That's all well and good but the real thing you want to know about Uncle Miltie is his prodigious member.
Now try getting that out of your mind's eye.
Other notable July 12 birthdays include:
Henry David Thoreau (1817)
George Washington Carver (1861 - there is no actual documentation on his exact birth date)
(God bless you Dr. Carver, for your work on alcohol.)
Oscar Hammerstein II (1895)
R. Buckminster Fuller (1895)
"Curly" Joe DeRita (1909)
Christine McVie (1943)
Richard Simmons (1948)
Me (1960)
(from an old CIA file, concerning my early naval career.)
Kristi Yamaguchi (1971)
Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai (1997)
July 12, 1843 -
Mormon numero uno Joseph Smith discloses a divine revelation instructing his followers to take multiple wives, in what the LDS Church calls "plural marriage" but everyone else calls polygamy.
The Mormons are ultimately forced to disclaim the practice in September 1890.
On July 12, 1957, Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first president to employ a helicopter while in office. The first helicopter put into presidential service was the HMX-1 "Nighthawks."
July 12, 1960 -
In 1955, a French electrician named André Cassagnes got an idea for a new toy after seeing how an electrostatic charge could hold aluminum powder to glass. He worked up a prototype for the toy—based on the design of a television screen—in his basement workshop and called it L’Ecran Magique, or the Magic Screen.
The first Etch-A-Sketch went on sale on this date.
July 12, 1979 -
Bonanno crime boss Carmine Galante, the "cigar problem", was whacked at Joe and Mary's Restaurant in Brooklyn on this date. Galante died with a cigar still in his mouth.
July 12, 1979 -
Bill Veeck, owner of the White Sox, decided to have "Disco Demolition Night" at Chicago's Comiskey Park, where baseball tickets cost only $.98 if the purchaser brought along a disco record for the bonfire on this date.
During the second game of the doubleheader, thousands of vinyl LPs flew onto the field, generating enough chaos that the White Sox are forced to forfeit. (One of our bunkies shared with us that Mike Veeck, Bob Veeck's son, along with Bill Murray, owns a string of independent baseball teams. Their motto: "Fun is Good."
And so it goes.
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